Monthly Archives: December 2014

This year is the first year I will be totally alone at Christmas. Because of circumstances, I will not spend time with either my daughter’s family or with my son.

In a way, it opens up the season as if a construct is changing the very shape of expectation. What Christmas will become to me in the future, I do not know. What is certain is that the present is engineering a new formulation of what is coming.

getting caught in the whirl wind

I overlook a stretch of space, of time and there are stepping stones ink- scratched on my calendar saying,’ in this place is a coffee with a friend, in this place is an appointment’. Having these scheduled events anchors the flow of days.

When I sit with others and hear their lives cycling unresolved issues, it causes me to examine my own. One day an image appeared. It is as if there were a pool of vomit on the floor in front of the refrigerator. As the dweller prepares meals and puts things away, he or she steps around the splatter of chaos. The smell becomes stronger and stronger and still, the dweller simply avoids the nasty thing. There is a mess of what could not be digested, processed and passed through in that life. Its presence causes greater and greater tension.

When I explained the metaphor one day to a friend she corrected me. “No,” she said, “we walk right through it because we don’t even register the presence of the mess.” I burst out in laughter at the picture.

But what if the decision was made to simply clean up? What things in my life do not work, what aspects are recycling negative outcomes? What emotional, spiritual, physical, financial messes am I stepping around?

When I returned from a conference in San Francisco, I concentrated on the physical. I painted scratched trim, I took all of the hidden treasures out of drawers, cupboards and closets. Most of the items taking up space were ridiculously old, dried up, never used or three or four partial bottles of the same fluids. So with joy I just threw the unnecessary out.

Next I have a hanging lamp I have owned for almost 10 years. I called a handy man and paid to have it hung.

It is such a pleasing thing to see how it shifts the energy when the environment becomes cleaner, more orderly and calmer. I had the area rug cleaned. Over 12 years ago I laid that in my livingroom and twice have taken it to the back yard to run water through it from my hose.

The carpet cleaner asked when I had had it cleaned professionally, because he said the black water was coming out of it for a long time, and the sand. Lots of sand fell though it (maybe it was time). I said, “Never.”

My computer housed thousands of files and pictures. With a mind to action, I ordered, labeled, put then into folders that my future self could discern. Then I dragged them off to Dropbox to be stored.

I thought about the possibilities, the almost touching filaments that could carry energy and bring prosperity into me. The facebook, twitter, linked in, red bubble, google plus should flow to one another. They could work together to fling information from site to site exciting the internet neurons. So I loaded 45 images into the red bubble account, selected products and started posting and reposting with links from one window to the other.

Loneliness has been leaving me feeling as if a cannon ball had blown my heart out. “And whose fault is that?” Yep. I was talking to myself again. So I started reaching out to friends and setting up coffee dates. On Mondays I now establish a schedule of events for the week. In the past I eye the calendar and just sigh myself deeper into my covers But now I have come to realize that like most other things in life, if I want friendships I need to maintain them.

I think back to when I was just a discarded rag doll on the floor five years ago and how I got better and went to Chapters to sit. I was around people but not with people. How much deficit I have created from my attitude of marginality.

So if it something just stinking in life; if it is making more work ignoring it than it is dealing with it; if it is creating drama when the desire is for peace and laughter, then clean it up.

Today I hired a dating coach. At 70 years of age, I have finally learned I need help. There are things that are not working. There are things in my life that I don’t know how to do, how to solve, how to correct.

But one thing I learned from the conference organizers in San Francisco, is that those billionaires who I talked to there learned to ask for help. They hired life coaches, and tech workers, and personal trainers. And they did it when they were barely hanging on financially.

It isn’t weakness to bend down and clean things up. But maybe looking at a you tube video about the best way to go about it is a good idea.

If something is not working, make it work. Find somebody who knows how to make it work. Get rid of the old crap in life and the old drama. Stop hoarding and ignoring. And don’t worry about being bored. There will always be more smelly mess to deal with. No worries, there.